The Lightning Thief-A Percy JacksonHumanstuck Crossover
by TheUnknownRenegade
Summary: Weirdest. Thing. I have ever written. I'm not too proud of my work, honestly. I just love both Homestuck and Percy Jackson so much...you can't really blame me. DON'T JUDGE ME. ;-; I'm working on two fanfics at the same time. Thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Probably the weirdest concoction anyone has ever thought of.**

**Homestuck/Humanstuck.**

**Plus.**

**Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

**…**

**Weird right?**

**I know. Weird. I'm like that.**

**Considering I have more experience roleplaying trolls than humans, and since I used to(and possibly still do) excel in roleplaying Karkat, he can take the Percy-figure of this story. Most of the PJ&TO characters will remain the same, except some major characters, like Grover, Annabeth, etc, etc. Who they'll be, I'll save for later in the story. Also expect the characters who have been "replaced" to have mixed personalities of themselves and who they're representing, like Karkat having both a Karkat-y and Percy-like personality. Warning, if you are doubtful by this type of thing, turn away now. You've been warned, kiddo.**

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**Chapter 1: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher**

Look here, asshat. I didn't want to be a half-blood.

Most people would be praising and bending knee over this shit, for the very fact that they were "lucky" or "blessed" enough to become a fucking product of a mortal human being, and of a god and/or goddess most people of the 21st century thought to be believed as some stupid fucked up story that explained the meaning of something else, something just about completely worthless.

Well, those idiots are dead wrong. And you are too if you were thinking just like them as you began reading. It's dangerous. Scary. Horrific. You can get killed in so many possible ways, it's just about too fucking broad for your microscopic brain to comprehend clearly.

If you're a normal kid, good for you. Live your normal fucking life and be thankful that you weren't cursed with this abnormality, this abomination.

I should really stop bad-mouthing the gods before one of them sends some monster to shut me the fuck up. Let me tell you my story-and the story of other people I have met.

My name is Karkat Vantas.

I am twelve years old currently. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for "challenged" and "troubled" kids, to put it nicely.

Was I a "troubled" kid?

I guess you can fucking say that, nothing'll stop you, anyway.

I could start at any point of my short, miserable lie to prove it, but things really started to get bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a fucking field trip to Manhattan—twenty-eight mental kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus that resembled something that could've been the mutant product of a bumblebee and an elephant, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at Ancient Greek and Roman shit. The Greek stuff interested me more, and I got the point eventually that the Romans had basically copied everything from the Greeks like some stupid shitheads that didn't have the normal brain capacity that they should've had.

Must sound like torture—most Yancy field trips were. I would rather have had detention for two weeks straight-literally, _straight_-, than go on one of these.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this one, so I had to have some fucking hopes up. At least a little.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool or some shit like that, but he told some interesting stories and let us play a few games at class that didn't want me to snap another kid's neck off at some point. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't want me to be euthanized on the spot. To be put out of my misery quickly, to put it bluntly.

I hoped that the fucking hell trip would be at least bearable. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

But, of course, dammit I was wrong.

You see, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school(also got expelled from that one), when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I has this unexplainable accident with a Revolutionary War cannon…I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got fucking booted out of that school. And before that, my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool(which, frankly, wasn't a good idea from the very start), and I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk, and the whole class took an unscheduled swim with some carnivorous beasts of the ocean. And the time before that…You get the idea already.

This trip, I was determined to be good. Okay, not good, considering my colorful fucking vocabulary, sprinkled with "fuck you"s and yadda yadda yadda, what-the-fuck-ever, but you know what I mean. In behavior.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, kleptomaniac girl, who was bombarding my best friend Gamzee in the back of the head with chunks of peanut-butter-and-ketchup sandwich. This kid's parents apparently didn't give a shit about what she ate.

Gamzee, unfortunately, was an easy target. He was lanky, a bit scrawny, and a bit taller than his age, and he looked older too. Gamzee also wore clown facial paint, for reasons I only know-he had a scar that resembled a claw slash across his face. When I asked how he got it, he shut up and pretended not to hear me, and I've never asked about it since. He must've been held back by several years, because he was the only sixth grader with a height of 5'7''. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his lie because of some fucking kind of muscular disease in his legs. At the start, I called bullshit on that-I had thought the fucker was just trying to get out of the forced games we had to play, but I soon learned that he really was disabled, in a way. He walked funny, kind of in a limp, like every step hurt like hell, but don't let this shit fool you. You should've seen him run when it was pie day in the cafeteria-he plowed down a few other six graders and dragged me on the floor just about half the way there. That kid could pull and run when he wanted to.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was still hammering the wads of the disgusting sandwich into my friend's curly, unruly dark hair, and she knew I couldn't do shit about it because I was already on probation with the headmaster for some other shit I had done earlier in the year, and probably considering he had seen my past school records. The big man himself had threatened me with death-by in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip. Bullshit. Total bullfuckery.

"I am going to fucking kill her." I mumbled with a throaty growl, but I was quieted by the hand on my shoulder, and I sighed with a grunt, looking up at my friend, who already seemed miserable. "It's okay, brother…I like peanut butter, anyway."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch-but in the process got his head slammed into the window. He moaned slightly with pain, a grimace on his face. Nancy just smirked and giggled rather devilishly, and I snapped. I started to get up, muttering threats and curses way too profane for even a teen to use, but Gamzee simply pulled me back down to a sitting position, the other shaking his head.

"You're on motherfucking probation, Karkat, you know who'll get blamed if anything happens." He reminded me with more of a scolding tone than a comforting one.

Looking back at it, I wish I had decked Nancy right then and there. ISS would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner ran the tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the massive galleries of stuff I-and pretty much everyone else-didn't give much of a flying fuck about, but I seemed to care a bit more than most of the others, besides Gamzee, of course.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot tall stone column with a large sphinx on the top, which is the cross of a lion's body and a human's, preferably a pharaoh of Egypt or some kind of ruler, to the ones who don't know what the hell a sphinx is, but moving on. He told us about how it was a grave marker, a _stele_, for a girl about our age. He told us all about the carvings on the sides, but I couldn't hear what exactly he was saying since the whole fucking group decided to talk up a shitstorm, and every time I told someone or all of them to shut up, my pre-algebra teacher and our other chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, gave me the evil eye. And that hag admittedly scared at least a little shit out of me.

Mrs. Dodds was this math teacher from Georgia who always wore a leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old(I object to that-the wrinkly old bitch looks like she's _ancient_). She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. Gee, I wonder what caused that.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit, and I figured I was the devil's spawn. She would point her crooked, bony finger at me with this sickeningly sweet smile and an even more sweet-like, "Now, honey," which basically told me I had a month's worth of detentions or two of clapping erasers.

One time, she made me spend the night erasing answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, and I made the comment to Gamzee that she wasn't human. The strange part was that he looked at me grimly, rather seriously, which he almost never pulled, and said slowly, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about the Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered and whispered something about the naked guy on the _stele_, and I whipped around, baring my teeth, and told her tightly, "Will you _shut up_?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group burst into amused laughter, and Mr. Brunner paused in his lesson.

"Mr. Vantas," he said, "Do you have a comment?"

I felt my face heat up with the intensity of a thousand suns, and I didn't need a mirror to tell that my face was flooded with the brightest red on the color scale. I didn't meet anyone's eyes as I replied, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the _stele_. "Perhaps you will tell us what this image represents?"

I looked at the carving, and I felt a flush of immense relief. I knew this one, I had actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" I assumed a bit blatantly.

"Yes," Mr. Brunner nodded, but his tone sounded obviously not impressed. "And he did this because…"

"Well…Kronos was the king god, and-"

"God?" Mr. Brunner raised an eyebrow.

I coughed, clearing my throat as I immediately recognized my mistake. "Titan, he was the King of the Titans, and he didn't trust his children, who in fact were the gods. So, he ate them. But his wife hid infant Zeus, and gave him a rock to consume instead. And later, when Zeus peaked into adulthood, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into vomiting up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" Giggled one of the girls behind me. I scowled.

"-and so there was this war between the Titans and the gods," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Some irritated glares from me.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit whispered to her just-as-ugly friend, "Like we're going to actually use this in real life. It will ask on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Vantas," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, must we know this and at what point does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Gamzee muttered with a small smirk.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner had these radar ears, and he was the only one who ever caught her doing or saying something wrong, which was very amusing to me and simply added another quality on the list of why I like Mr. Brunner.

I thought about his question, then sighed with defeat and shrugged. "I'm not sure, sir"

"I see," Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Vantas. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him into pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you please lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs pitifully, and the guys pushing and shoving each other around like the complete douchecanoes and shit-for-brains they all really were.

Gamzee and I were about to follow, then Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Vantas."

I knew what was coming. Fuck.

I told Gamzee to keep going. Then I turned to Mr. Brunner and replied, "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my questions," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the fucking Titans?

See, another thing-in private, Mr. Brunner didn't mind my cursing as much.

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Karkat Vantas."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind o cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be _as good_; he expected me to me _better_. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder with a sour tone, while Mr. Brunner took one long, sad look at the _stele_, like he had been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could observe the foot traffic of Fifth Avenue. I watched sullenly with a bored look to my eyes, Gamzee gnawing at an apple half-heartedly to my left, looking at the crowds through near-indigo eyes, his scruffy bangs getting into his eyes.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I had ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was that shitty global warming conspiracy thing or something, because the weather all across the New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms(thank you for that, Mother Nature), flooding(not as great but just as good), wildfires from lightning strikes(haha, hell no)…I honestly wouldn't be surprised is a hurricane would be blowing in right this minute.

Nobody else really seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting the pigeons with Lunchables crackers and Hot Cheetos. Nancy Bobofit was busy trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and Mrs. Dodds, of course, wasn't seeing a fucking thing.

Gamzee and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from everybody else but each other. We both thought maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know that we were from _that_ school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it anywhere else.

"Detention?" Gamzee asked, mumbling through his half-eaten apple, which he was still nibbling on rather nervously. Nervous about what, I don't know.

"Nah," I replied, shaking my head. "Not from Brunner. Just wish he'd fucking lay off me sometimes, I mean-I'm not a stupid genius."

"Uh, can geniuses even be stupid?"

"No. Yeah. Maybe. I don't fucking know."

Gamzee just nodded and his gaze became distant as he stared at the ground below our feet. He didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he looked at me and asked, "Can I have your apple?"

I made a face and looked down at his hand. I didn't even see any trace of the apple he had previously, not even the core. I raised a skeptical eyebrow, then shrugged, taking my apple out of my lunchbox. I didn't have much of an appetite, so I handed him it and sighed, watching him bite into the green fruit before averting my bored, insomnia-racked gaze elsewhere.

I watched the flow of cabs drive down Fifth Avenue, and was reminded of my mother and her apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump into a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be ecstatic to see me, but she'd be disappointed too. She would ship me right back to Yancy Academy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she would give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He munched on celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich from its clear plastic wrap prison when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of us with her ugly friends-I guess she had gotten tired from stealing from the tourists-and flipped her lunchbox over, dumping her half-eaten lunch onto Gamzee's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if someone had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. And so bad I wanted to slap those freckles off from here to the heavens.

I tried to stay cool, my sandwich being crushed under a death grip I had on it. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper."

I counted to five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

But I was so mad that my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember anything, but the next thing I saw was Nancy sitting on her ass in the fountain, her eyes wide and she screaming, "Karkat pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering frantically: "Did you see-"

"-the water"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew is that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the gift shop, etc., etc., she turned on me. There was some sort of triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"

"I know," I growled under my breath, huffing with distaste. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me." Mrs. Dodds told me.

"Wait!" Gamzee yelped. "It was me! _I_ pushed her!" He insisted.

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Gamzee to death.

She glared at him so hard his eyes quivered a bit and his chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Makara." She said.

"But-"

"You-_will_-stay-here."

Gamzee looked at me desperately, as if he expected some input from me.

"It's okay," I told him with a reassuring look, a feigned smile. "Thanks for trying, I'll be fine."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "_Now._"

Nancy Bobofit smirked. I returned her smug look with a death-defying scowl, and she jumped a bit.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-rip-out-your-tongue later glare, then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, at the very top of the steps, gesturing impatiently for me to hurry up. She had a hungry glint in her eyes.

How'd she get there so damn fast?

I have moments like this a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something and I miss something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and I was left staring at the blank piece it left. The school counselor told me that this was part of the ADHD and insomnia, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Gamzee, who was looking pale, cutting his dark eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up, and Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was standing at the end of the entrance hall, inside the building.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me but a new T-shirt from the gift shop for stupid Nancy.

Apparently that wasn't the plan, though.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a large marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, like she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey." She spoke.

I did the current safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you _really_think you could get away with it?"

The look in her ancient eyes was beyond mad. It was evil, malicious, and malevolent.

I swallowed.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. She can't hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am." Why was I bending down to this bitch?

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Karkat Vantas," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

What the hell was she fucking talking about? Confess? Found me out? Pain?

All I could think of was that the teachers found out about my illegal stash of candy and chips I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized that I got my essay of _Tom Sawyer_ completely off the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

But something about her tone told me it was far worse.

"Well?" She demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't…"

"Your time is up," She hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like burning barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. That's what Gamzee had meant that one time. She was a shriveled old bat with wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, as well as a bloodthirst, and she was about to shred me into ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who had been outside in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled in his chair into the doorway of the gallery, a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Karkat!" He shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me, yowling.

With a yelp, I dodged to the let, feeling sharp-clawed talons slashing the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air , but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were Jell-O. My hands were trembling so bad I almost dropped the sword.

"Die, honey!" Mrs. Dodds screeched at me.

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my veins. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder, and passed clean through her body as if she were made out of water. _Hisss!_

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur in the air and a dying screech and the chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. There was nobody there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Gamzee was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his map. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?" I asked, confused.

"Our _teacher_! Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes stubbornly and turned away.

I asked Gamzee where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting in his chair under his umbrella, reading his book, looking as if he had never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, looking a little bit distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Vantas."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I asked. "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone, Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher?"

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Karkat, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I'm concerned, there has neither ever been a Mrs. Dodds at Nancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"

No. Not exactly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for so many views and the two wonderful reviews I have received! I really never expected this much. Reviews and stuff would be appreciated! And plus, I'm trying to type as many chapters as quickly as I can. If you wait a bit for one, school's simply being a bitch, I recently discovered my old account and an incomplete fanfiction, my Breathless Continued fanfiction, and I apologize. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Oh, and sorry for those mistakes back in the last chapter. XD Just noticed them while I was re-reading them, like- "Gamzee was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his map."**

**What the fuck. Bad Renegade, bad. I meant "head", but I know you guys are smart enough to figure that out. X3 So, uh, enjoy. I've said that twice now. Three times. Enjoy. Or I will send a chimera after you to devour you whole.**

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**Chapter Two: Three Old Hags Knit the Damned Socks of Death**

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four-fucking-seven hallucination was more than I could take. For the remainder of the school year at Yancy Academy, everyone seemed to be playing a trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blonde woman who I hadn't seen at all for the year until she boarded onto our bus at the end of the field trip involving a museum, me pushing Nancy into a fountain somehow, and Mrs. Dodds the demon and my previous pre-algebra teacher-had been our teacher since Christmas.

Every so often, I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on someone randomly, to test if they were going to keep this terrible charade up or not, but they always gave me a look that game me the feeling I belonged in a fucking mental hospital for the clinically insane.

At points, it got so overwhelming I almost caved in and believed them-that the demonic math teacher had never existed in the school records.

But I always shook that feeling off as soon as it came and dismissed it to the void part of my mind, not wanting it to drift back up into my subconscious. I almost believed them.

Al-fucking-most.

But Gamzee couldn't fool me if he could fool the whole world in believing that the dinosaurs didn't die out and were living in some place underground, like in that shitty Journey to the Center of the Earth movie. Yeah, because _I_ of all people would believe that horseshit. When I would claim or ask again if Dodds existed, he would hesitate, then say that she never did. He was lying, and I was determined to know why.

Maybe he was just a horrible liar. Or maybe he was hiding something.

Something was going on. Something _had_ fucking happened at that hellhole of a museum. I knew it. Fucking _knew_ it.

I didn't have much time to think of it clearly during the day, except when I day-dreamed or slept in class-my insomnia catching up with me again-but when I was actually able to sleep and dream at night, the visions of Mrs. Dodds lunging at me occurred, talons outstretched, eyes burning like fire, fangs glistening with saliva and shaded yellow, a horrible, extraterrestrial howl emitting from her throat, deep in her belly. Every time, she pounced on me and started to rip me to shreds, and just when I was on the verge of death, I would wake up, screaming, and slap the nearest face out of shock-which would always be Gamzee because he would be the one shaking me to wake me up. I never meant to slap the shit out of him, I was just scared for my life at that moment.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my ever-changing moods. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in mine and Gamzee's dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted touched down in the Hudson Valley only fifty miles away from Yancy Academy. One of the current events in social studies was the number of small airplanes to go down in sudden squalls over the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time-I mean more than I already was. My grades slipped from D-pluses to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I got sent out into the hallway in just about every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth-and-one time why I was too lazy to study for my spelling exams, I snapped and flew off the fucking hanger, doing a pirouette off the deep end. I called him a fucking douchecanoe that can go jump out the fucking window the next time a thunderstorm rolled around and roll in the mud like the old pig he was. I didn't know why I said that of all things. And I also flipped my desk over. The next day my mother received a letter from the headmaster that said exactly as I predicted: I would not be invited to Yancy Academy next year.

I was perfectly fine with that. Perfectly fucking fine.

I was homesick.

I longed to be with my mother in our little apartment in the Upper East Side of New York, even if I had to go to…ugh, public school, and put up with my _extremely_ loathsome, abhorrent, hateful, obnoxious stepfather and his incredibly stupid fucking poker parties, which is really the time for me to be a slave. "Boy, get this" and "Go get that". It drives me up the fucking wall, and I hate him with every fiber of my being. Every fucking fiber.

But yet…there would be some things I would still miss from Yancy, believe it or not. The view of the woods outside the dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the calming smell of pine trees. I'd miss Gamzee, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little bit strange. I honestly worried on the subject of him surviving next year. Or how I possibly could without him.

I'd miss Latin class too- Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his undying faith that I could do better and well.

As exam week got closer and dragged on my heels, the only class I'd studied for was Latin, go figure. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me, about this subject being life-or-death for me. I wasn't exactly sure why, but I was actually starting to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so damn frustrated I hurled the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ across the dorm room. The large book thudded against the wall and slid down ungracefully and unceremoniously. Words had started swimming off of the pages and around my head and the room, and I was so fucking sick of it, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no fucking way in hell that I was going to remember the difference between Chiron, the centaur, and Charon, the ferryman to the Underworld, or Polydectes, a king, and Polydeuces, twin brother of Castor that created the constellation of Gemini, the twins, also known as Castor and Pollux. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced around the room, feeling as if ants had crawled up my clothing and scurrying all over me.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year old eyes._ I expect only the best from you, Karkat Vantas._

God that man frustrated me so goddamn much sometimes. What the actual fuck, man?

I took a deep breath, brushing my hand back through my dark hair. I looked back at the fallen mythology book, then walked over to it and retrieved it from the floor, letting out a sigh.

I had never asked help from a teacher before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he'd give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the large fat F I was about to score on my exam in his class. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking that I hadn't tried. I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Gamzee's answered, "…worried about Karkat, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to not try to listen in on a conversation, especially if you hear your friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"…alone this summer," Gamzee was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the fucking _school!_ Now that we know for sure, and_ they_ know too-"

"We only would make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner interjected. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"

"Will have to be resolved without him, Gamzee. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he _saw _her…"

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir I…I can't fail my motherfucking duties again." Gamzee's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Gamzee," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Karkat alive until the next fall-"

The mythology book dropped out of my sweaty grasp and landed with a loud thud on the hallway floor, making me cringe with fear.

Mr. Brunner and Gamzee were silent.

I stooped over and picked up the book, backing down the hall as quick as I could without dropping the book or busting my ass and getting myself caught, my heart hammering against my chest as if it were trying to escape.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Mr. Brunner's office door, the shadow something much taller than my wheelchair-bound Latin teacher, holding something that suspiciously looked like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow _clop-clop-clop_, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then it moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," He murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Gamzee nodded. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went dark in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the blackness for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out and into the hallway, making my way back quietly to the dorm.

Gamzee was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he had been there all night.

"Hey," He said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful," He frowned. "Is everything alright?"

"Just…tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and I started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe that I was imagining it the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Gamzee and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all of the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside his office.

For a moment, I was worried that he had found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but this seemed to not be the problem right now.

"Karkat," He said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best."

His words and tone were kind and gentle, but I still felt embarrassed out of my mind. Even though he was speaking quietly, Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her ugly lips. I cringed and turned away with disgust, flipping her the bird when Mr. Brunner blinked.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean…" Mr. Brunner rolled his wheelchair back and forth, like he wasn't sure of what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes, admittedly, stung.

Here I was, my favorite teacher telling me in front of the whole damn class that I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, after pushing me so fucking hard, and now he was telling me that I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say is…is that you're not normal, Karkat. That's nothing to be-"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot sir, for fucking reminding me."

"Karkat-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase half-heartedly.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising to the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich_ juvenile delinquents. Their fathers were executors, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I was doing this summer and I told them I was just going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I would have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I would go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of them said. "That's cool."

Then they went back to their fucking conversation and acted as if I never existed. Sometimes, with these kids, I wish I didn't.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Gamzee, but it turned out I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading back into the cold city.

During the whole bus ride, Gamzee kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers warily. It always occurred to me that he always acted fidgety and nervous when we were away from Yancy Academy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound, and this made me the least bit suspicious.

Finally, I just couldn't fucking stand it anymore.

"What are Kindly Ones?" I asked him suddenly, without hesitation.

Gamzee nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean…?"

I confessed to the eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Gamzee's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh…not much. What the fuck is with that summer solstice deadline?"

He winced, "Oh, uh, look, Karkat, I was just worried about you, you all up and hallucinating about motherfucking demonic math teachers…"

"Gamzee-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something like that, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"

"Gamzee, you are truly a fucking disgraceful liar, you know."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was bloody murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Gamzee Makara

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800)-009-0009

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" He grimaced. "That's my um…fuck…summer address."

My heart sank. Gamzee had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your damn mansion."

He nodded. "Or…if you need me."

"Why would I fucking need you?"

It came out harsher that I meant it to.

Gamzee blushed bright right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Karkat, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended _me._

"Gamzee," I said, "what exactly are you even protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes of clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Gamzee and I filed outside sullenly with everyone else, the passengers with us grumbling some pretty sour things.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway there was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the side of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Gamzee to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Gamzee?" I said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not fuckin' funny, Karkat. Not funny at motherfuckin' all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Gamzee catch his breath, and I watched confusedly. Why was he freaking out so much?

"We're getting on the bus," He told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered.

"Damn right!" yelled the bus driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Gamzee didn't look much better. He was shivering and shaking and his teeth were chattering.

"Gamzee?"

"Yeah?"

"What're you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Karkat, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the three old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like…Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much fucking worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out some scissors, and cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture that looked like he was crossing himself, only he wasn't. It seemed like something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw her snip the motherfucking cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Gamzee muttered. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never make it past the sixth grade."

"Gamzee," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What're you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request from him, to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this a superstition or something?"

No answer.

"Gamzee, that snipping of the yarn, does that mean someone's going to fucking die?"

He just looked at me mournfully, as if he was already thinking of the flowers I'd like best on my coffin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Eight reviews?! And they're all filled with compliments…thank you everybody! Here is the long awaited Chapter 3, because fuck my life any everything about it. X'D**

**School's a pain in the ass and beyond, but there's only nine school days left. I promise then, after school lets out, the updates'll come up sooner. I'm sorry for the wait, and enjoy Chapter 3! 3 I love you all. /glomps all of my readers.**

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**Chapter Three: Gamzee Unexpectedly Loses His Pants-Something I Didn't Want to Fucking Witness.**

Confession time, everyone: I ditched Gamzee as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know, fucking rude of me. But the asshole was freaking me out, looking at me as if I was a dead man and mumbling things like "Why does this always happen?" and "Why the motherfuck does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Gamzee's bladder always acted up for some reason. So without surprise, as soon as we got off of the bus, he made me promise not the leave him behind and made an immediate beeline straight for the nearest restroom. He almost went into a girl's restroom, but he soon found out that he walked in the wrong one the hard way and was sent stumbling out of there with two screaming girls at his heels, then he barged into the men's bathroom, safe and sound.

Instead of waiting for my friend, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi I spotted uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First." I told the driver.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

(Note that it is 12:30 am where I am right now and I'm too sleepy to make up any real names. XD)

Her name is Sally Vantas and she is the best fucking person in the world. Anyone who says otherwise will have a very nice face-to-fist conversation over a cup of fucking tea in the park=. Her being the best person in the fucking planet, it proves my theory that the best people always have the worst luck, respectively. Her own parents-my grandparents-died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who never really gave much of a shit about her. She always had wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working so she could save up enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. Rotten luck, right?

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe even the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about it because it saddens her. She has no pictures, either.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and that they kept their relationship a secret. Then one day he set sail on some journey in the Atlantic and never returned.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead, but lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never even complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't exactly an easy kid.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we fucking knew him, then he showed his true colors and turned out to be a world-class jerkoff. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. This fucker smelled like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gangrened gym socks that took a dive in a McDonald's dumpster.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty fucking hard, you see. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way Gabe and I got along…well, when I got home would be a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping that my mom was home from work. Instead, I got Smelly Gabe in the living room, revolting as always, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer bottles/cans were strewn across the floor.

Hardly looking up, he said from around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," He replied. "Got any cash?"

That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How's your life been the past six months?_

Gabe had put on weight, no surprise there. He looked like a tuskless walrus(no, that's an offense to walruses.) in thrift-store clothing. He had about three greasy hairs on his head, which were combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting the damn paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me want to retch and throw up, and beer. Always the fucking beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide him with his gambling funds. He called it our "guy secret". By that, he meant if I told Mom then he would punch my lights out.

"I don't have any cash." I told him firmly, furrowing my eyebrows and glaring at him with my auburn-red eyes-a trait from my mother.

He raised a greasy eyebrow. When it came to Gabe, he was like a cash-sniffing bloodhound. He wrinkled his nose in thought as he calculated quickly, "You used a cab to get here. Probably used a twenty. Six, seven bucks left in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to learn to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," He said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated harshly.

Eddie scowled into his pretzel bowl. The other two passed gas in perfect harmony, making my nose wrinkle in disgust, and Gabe nodded with apparent satisfaction.

"Fine, you sourass of a damn stepfather," I growled with a red glare. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw it carelessly on the table. "I hope you fucking lose." I stormed up the stairs.

"Your report card came in, brain boy!" He shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

"Shut your fucking trap already!"

I slammed the door to my room behind me hard, but the thing was, it wasn't really my room. During school months, it became Gabe's "study". He didn't study anything except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my fucking windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his revolting cologne, cigars, and stale fucking beer.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought of that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Gamzee's look of utter panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill racked through me. I felt like someone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons…

Then I heard my mother's voice. "Karkat?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears instantly melted away.

My mother can make me feel great just by walking into the room-she's probably the only person who can make me do so. Not even Gamzee could notch up to that level. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is warmer than a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair from the stress we all put on her, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good thing about me, and never none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say a profanity, or even an unkind word, to anyone, not even me or Gabe. And we've both given her hell of a lot reasons to. I wonder where my short temper and my cursing came from, if I was birthed from this incredibly kind woman?

"Oh, Karkat!" She hugged me tight, and I took in her scent with a faint smile. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked and mauled the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my semi-tidy dark brown hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing alright?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all of that shit, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her. Okay, maybe not that secretly, but whatever.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth, clenched my jaw, and muttered a few curse words under my breath as my shoulders tensed and straightened. My mother rubbed my left shoulder and put a finger to my lips, giving me a very slight stern look as I finished my cursing, then she gave a soft yet heavy sigh and stood up.

My mom is the nicest lady in the entire fucking world. She should've married to a millionaire, not to some asshole like Gabe.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy, gently pulling her down by the wrist into a sitting position, telling her with my eyes that he could wait. I told her verbally that I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did, believe it or not. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up all of a sudden, thinking about Gamzee and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem such of a bitch.

Until that trip to the museum…

"What?" my mom asked, tilting her head to the side slightly. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mother."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound batshit crazy.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said with a smile. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled wider. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe complained there wasn't enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled throatily, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I bit back a sour retort, giving Gabe a death glare straight in the eyes. He didn't even flinch, which made me growl a bit in my throat and my eyes narrow with disgust. I wanted to punch him so fucking bad, but I met my mother's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave to Montauk. Then we would get the hell out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe with a calm voice, making her way to a stand and absent-mindedly ruffling my hair a bit. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I fucking knew it," I muttered lowly, glaring at the ground. "He won't let the prisoners out."

"Oh, of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added. "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit, and I smirked to myself. Go Mom. "So this money for your trip…it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mother replied.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry up with that seven-layer dip…And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in the soft spot, I thought angrily. And I'll make you sing soprano for a week. You're the one who should be fucking apologizing. For ruining our lives.

But my mom's eyes warned me not the make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I grumbled, looking up at Gabe with complete scorn. "I'm really fucking sorry for interrupting your precious gambling game. Please go right the fuck back to it right now." So I don't have to see your disgusting figure, I would have added.

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His minuscule brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. And it was clearly there.

"Whatever," He decided.

He left, going back to his damn game. I growled lowly and rolled my eyes, looking back up at my mother, sitting in a slouched position now.

"Thank you, Karkat," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about…whatever it is you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Gamzee during the Greyhound bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ran her fingers back through my hair and I mirrored her smile, and then she left to go make Gabe in his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more importantly, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

"I don't need your shit, Gabriel," I grumbled in return, turning to face him, straightening up and glaring him in the eye, a look he returned without hesitance. "Nor do I need your complaining about my mother being gone for three days. We both don't. Just go right the fuck back inside to your oh-so-precious poker game and leave us the hell alone, you damned excuse for a living human being."

His nostrils flared, and he clenched his fist, bringing it up and back. I closed my eyes calmly, waiting for the impact. It never came-my mom came out of the house for the final time, and Gabe had quickly lowered his threatening gesture before she could see. He hissed in a whisper at me, "You're lucky she came out, you know."

With a huff, I turned away and opened the passenger door, my mom making her way to the driver's seat. I was so completely infuriated by Gabe's bullshit, and I did something I couldn't exactly explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Gamzee make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement out towards Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the fat ass and sent him flying up the stairs as if he'd been shot from a circus cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half-sunken into the dunes, There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was so special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. I had always wondered where I had gotten my eyes-my mother said it could've been from her uncle, who had them-and then I had gotten her hair tone. But I had my father's attitude, she'd always say. Nice and sweet but spunky and sarcastic. Haha.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I should probably explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mother went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Vantas, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind when we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes got all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Karkat," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle too. Unfortunately, you didn't inherit any of his traits, I'm afraid."

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Karkat. He would be so proud."

I wondered how exactly she could even say that. What the hell was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years, and this uncanny sense that he would be a great and powerful leader someday.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean…when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Karkat. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But…he knew me as a infant."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember…something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now to be told that he'd never seen me…well, there's not really anything to say, except that my beliefs were just shattered, I guess.

I felt angry with my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to just marry my mother. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with that idiotic bullshit excuse for a fucking stepfather, Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To yet another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think…I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as they tumbled forward from my mouth.

My mother's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand and squeezed it tight. "Oh, Karkat, no. I-I _have_ to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

Her own words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that is was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal." I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Karkat. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe? Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During the third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told that under his broad-brimmed hat, he man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that- a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I really didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Karkat-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just…I just can't do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she corrected. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born-talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Karkat," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But it's only a summer camp…"

She turned towards the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I know I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _No!_

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse and eagle fighting on the beach, just lightning making false daylight and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and whispered out, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean had seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Gamzee stood in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain, his hair messier than usual and flattened out against his head, his clown facepaint all smeared and running down his face and neck. But he wasn't…he wasn't exactly Gamzee.

"Searching all motherfucking night…" he gasped. "What were you fuckin' thinking?" He looked over at me, and I didn't reply, too shocked to utter a word.

My mother turned and also looked at me, terror glazing in her eyes-but scared of Gamzee, but why'd he come.

"Karkat," She shouted to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Gamzee. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"_O Zeu kai __I̱__mi̱téra gami̱méno_ _alloi theoi!" _He yelled, clearly in a panic. "It's right the fuck behind me! Didn't you _tell her?!"_

I was too shocked to register that he had just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd under stood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Gamzee had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Gamzee didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be…where his fucking legs should be…

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "_Karkat. _Tell me _now_!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and about Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you._ Go_!"

Gamzee ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet.

There were fucking _cloven hooves._

* * *

**Sorry for the terribly long wait! I thank you for all of your views and thank you for keeping up with this story! Tomorrow is the last day of school(yay and nuuuu), so my updates should be more frequent. Lets hope for the best, as this isn't much of an exciting chapter. Chapter Four will be though, I promise! X3 See you all!**

**-Renegade**


	4. Chapter 4

**Oh my gosh guys, I'm so sorry! Summer's catching up with me, and I'm getting really lazy. I guess I lied when I said I would update more, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for the huge hiatus, I've been busy I guess. I still need to do those annotations on my books for summer reading though, eheh…**

**I'm a huge procrastinator. Ask anyone. Well, here's a try at Chapter 4!**

**Oh, and a shoutout to The Fox's Pencil: I couldn't exactly picture a Ms. Paint being the mother of Karkat, considering her extremely kindly and placid personality. I mean, I get it for Sally, I do, but I just don't see how I could fit it in there. And I really don't feel like going back to previous chapters and mixing it all in there as well. Sorry for the disappointment, I'm horrible.**

* * *

**Chapter Four: My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting.**

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro, rain lashing at the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see shit, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Gamzee sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I had truly gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo-lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom…know each other?"

Gamzee's eyes flitted up to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we never met all up in person. But she fuckin' knew I was watching you."

"Watching me? Like, stalker-wise?"

"No, no. Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were alright. But, of course, I wasn't faking being your friend. That happened, like, in real life," he added hastily. "I _am_ your friend."

"Um…what the absolute fuck _are_ you, exactly?"

"That really doesn't motherfucking matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist fucking down, my best friend is a damn donkey-"

Gamzee furrowed his brows and let out a sharp and dignified, "_Blaa-ha-ha!"_

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was some sort of nervous laugh. Now it realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a _goat _from the waist down!"

"You just said it didn't even fucking matter, you know."

"_Blaa-ha-ha!_ There are satyrs who would motherfucking trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like…Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a _myth_, Karkat? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you _fucking admit_ that there was a Mrs. Dodds! You liar!"

"Of course there was."

"Then why the fuck-"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract. Duh."

"Don't "duh" me. I didn't exactly know from the get-go."

Gamzee rolled his eyes and snorted, as if what he had said was perfectly obvious. "We put the Mist over the mortals' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But, of course, it was no good. You all up and started to realize who you motherfucking are."

"Who I-wait a minute, what do you even mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Karkat," my mother began, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Gamzee said, obviously still miffed about that donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Gamzee!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Vantas. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My mom made a hard left, making me slam a bit into Gamzee as we turned, who grunted as his head thumped against the window. We swerved into a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and "Pick your own strawberries" signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. That wasn't working. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear, sweetie," my mother pleaded. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut some damn yarn. That's scary." I muttered sarcastically.

"Those weren't old ladies," Gamzee pointed out. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to…when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. Wait. You said 'you'."

"No I didn't. I said 'someone'."

"You meant 'you'. As in _me._"

"No, I meant _you, _like in 'someone'. Not you, _you._"

"Boys!" My mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I questioned.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mine. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where _there_ was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, waiting for us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really _hadn't_ been human. She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner…and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Gamzee about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!_, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and being hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Karkat!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay…"

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Gamzee!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you've my best friend and I _don't_ want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Karkat," my mother said, "we have to…" Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-splattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Karkat," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Karkat-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"_What?"_

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You _are_ coming with me. Help me carry Gamzee."

"Food!" Gamzee moaned, a little louder.

The man walking with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't_ be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge, meaty hands-were pumping at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head…was his head. And the points that looked like horns…

"He doesn't want _us,_" My mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But…"

"We don't have time, Karkat. Go. Please."

I got mad, then-mad at my mother, as Gamzee the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

I climbed across Gamzee and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you-"

"Mom! I am _not_ leaving you. Help me with Gamzee."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Gamzee from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Gamzee's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like fucking baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so frightening. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner had told us. But he couldn't, he just couldn't, be fucking real. No. No no no no no.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's…that's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother interjected. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't say his name," she warned me. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far- a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man monstrosity hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Gamzee moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He does by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up our wrecked Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

_Not a scratch,_ I remembered Gabe saying.

Haha, oops.

"Karkat," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another bellow of fury, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

Fuck, he'd smelled us. Of course. What else could go to hell and back?

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Gamzee wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Gamzee. "Go, Karkat! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hatred, and he reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The bull-man hybrid stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Gamzee down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, backward the road, trying to lead the monster away from the unconscious Gamzee.

"Run, Karkat!" she told me. "I can't go any farther! Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, brown on red, and managed to choke out a word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons. But that seemed long ago.

The bull-man bore down on Gamzee, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Gamzee up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that. Ever.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, asshole! Ground beef! Turn your hairy ass around right the fuck now and leave him alone!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster roared, turning towards me and shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, of course, but better than no fucking idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the Minotaur, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-hybrid charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicked off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How I did that, I have no idea. I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The Minotaur staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong, and the rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a bronco. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Gamzee started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to just shut the hell up for a fucking second, I mean come on, you're fighting a fucking _Minotaur_ with only your bare hands, trying to avoid death, and your fuck for a best friend is over there moaning and whining for some goddamn food. Shut up already. I was getting tossed around, anyway, and if I opened my mouth I'd surely bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Gamzee moaned loudly, and I growled in my throat. Shut the fuck up already, you fucking goat boy!

The Minotaur wheeled around him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one of the horns and pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, and then-_snap!_

The Minotaur screamed in agony and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass, my head smacking against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, and the rain wasn't helping, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The Minotaur roared in pain and flailed, clawing at my chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain by then had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with absolute grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Gamzee, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying some, calling for my mother, but I held onto Gamzee-I wasn't going to let the fucker go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a rather pretty girl, her reddish-brown hair somewhat short and slightly falling over her shoulder, odd red tinted, pointed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, eyes barely visible. They both were looking down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."

"Silence, my dear demigod," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

**I'm not lying this time…hopefully. XD**

**Chapter Five should come within a few days, considering I don't have all that much to do. Hell, I might even do it tonight for you guys, or tomorrow morning! We'll see. :]**


	5. A Little Apology?

How's it going bros? I'm pretty sure more than half of you jumped and smiled or something at the mention of a new chapter to this fic.

And I know I said I'd update more.

…

Yeeeah, it seems I've lied. Again.

I don't know why, but I can't bring myself to continue.

Mostly because I've been having some serious writers block, stressing about school starting up again(due to some weird-as-fuck " best friend-or-more-or-even-less" problems occurring between me and my bestie), and the fact that I've been procrastinating SO HARD with my summer assignments. I need to annotate(something I never excelled at or understood much at all) a 100-something paged book, then like a 500+ paged book. Ahhh, the quirks of being in advanced classes.

It sucks so fucking hard.

I'm so sorry for not updating in so long! I really am, I apologize. And I'm surprised this even reached to 100+ views, let alone 760+. THIS ISN'T EVEN A GOOD 'FIC. WHY.

I want to hug every single one of you. Until I get police restraints or my arms fall off.

Eyup.

So, I'm unsure of what else to say, except thank you, all of my loyal viewers. Oh, and you'll also find me on Wattpad! My name is 'UnknownRenegade' on there(no shit Sherlock) and I've been working on a fic there as well.

…

I know, I'm such a bitch for betraying you guys I'M SO SORRY.

But I've lost a lot of muse for our little fic here, and I've grown into the Creepypasta and horror/slasher movies a lot recently, and if you like that kind of shit, I crossedover something like that on Wattpad. Mind you, I joined that site, like, three days ago or some shit, so I didn't forget and betray you guys completely.

Now come my children. Come and let Mother Renny wrap you in a warm embrace. /spreads arms out wide like the Mother-fucking-Dolorosa

I love you all. No joke. If I could, I would track you all down, sneak into your house Jeff-The-Killer style, and stare at you until you wake, only to give you a tackle-hug and run my fucking ass off and away into the night so your father or mother or guardian won't shoot my head off with a shotgun or worse for breaking into your home and assaulting you ever so kindly.

Now, this is my time to leave, and your time to read. I guess. I dunno.

Oh, and for you PewDieCry lovers(such as me. 3), go check out My Obsession by BeautysHarlequin. DO IT. It'll mind-rape you so fucking hard and good, you'll want more. XD

Anyways,

Renegade, over and out.


End file.
